Combined Med/Low-gradient & Upland Streams & Rivers Watershed Ranks

The purpose of this data set is support resource allocation decisions (i.e. where to invest conservation effort) within the Gulf Coastal Plains and Ozarks Landscape Conservation Cooperative. It represents a relative ranking of HUC12 watersheds according to the quantity and quality of habitat as described in the GCPO LCC’s draft Integrated Science Agenda (v4). Watersheds (HUC12) were ranked by calculating the length-weighted average Management Opportunity scores within them. Because the 3 actions are identical for Med/Low-gradient Streams & Rivers of the coastal plains and Upland Streams & Rivers, (and because some watersheds contain both system types), we considered these systems simultaneously and calculated only 1 value for each watershed. Action classes are different for Mainstem Big Rivers, so action and overall scores for that system were calculated separately. Unlike the terrestrial systems, we did not presume that sub-geography should play a role in the rankings. Once ranked relative to other watersheds in the GCPO LCC region, watersheds were classified (e.g., “Top 10%”) based on the cumulative proportion of total length represented by each watershed.